Difficulty in settling young children to sleep

Difficulties in settling to sleep are often under diagnosed in infants and toddlers. Parental behaviours which reduce the child’s independence about sleep, for example requiring a parental presence, or being put to bed once asleep, are the primary grounds for the development of settling difficulties. Potentially, a small but chronic loss of sleep in childhood could directly affect the child’s behaviour and social competence, cognitive performance and physical condition.

Children who have short duration night sleep before 3.5 years of age show increased risk of hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and poorer learning skills at 6 years of age compared with children who sleep for 11 hours a night.

Children who experience persistent short sleep duration in early infancy, are also at increased risk of obesity at 6 years. The importance of sleeping for at least 10 hours a night in early childhood is stressed, as the National Sleep Foundation poll suggests, for optimal child development.

If your child has difficulties in settling to sleep, Contact Dream-Angus and let us help you to help your child.

Importance of sleep for memory consolidation.

For generations mums have been told that sleep is important for babies because it involves actively consolidating memories. Now a team at the Department of Neurology in Massachusetts have undertaken a study to look at learning and sleep.

We all know that memories evolve. After learning something new, the brain initiates a complex set of post-learning processing that facilitates recall (i.e., consolidation). Evidence points to sleep as one of the determinants of that change.

Previously whenever a behavioral study of episodic memory shows a benefit of sleep, critics asserted that sleep only leads to a temporary shelter from the damaging effects of interference that would otherwise accrue during wakefulness.

To evaluate the potentially active role of sleep for verbal memory, this study, by Ellenbogen, Hulbert, Jiang, and Stickgold, compared memory recall after sleep, with and without interference before testing.

They have demonstrated that recall performance for verbal memory was greater after sleep than wakefulness. When when using interference testing, that difference was even more pronounced.

By introducing interference after sleep, this study confirms the active role of sleep in consolidating memory.

This is yet another reason why we should encourage good sleep habits in our children. They are learning on a daily basis and a good sleep/wake pattern can only enhance that learning experience and help them to be "all that they can be".

If you need help to improve your child's sleep pattern, contact Dream-Angus.com